How Forgiveness Works

all right? That part where it's like I'm learning to live with that June Now, it stirs my soul every time forgiveness you'd have to be dead inside did not be stirred by that part. It's good, good song. But he really kind of nails it in that because he's talking about forgiveness in the Heart of the Matter. Sure um, and he's he wants forgiveness, he needs forgiveness even if like it's the end of the relationship, even if she

doesn't love him anymore. Sure so. On the one hand, that is a certain kind of forgiveness that an individual or person can that's a path someone can set down. But there's been a lot of research starting starting in the very beginning um stages at the middle of the

twentieth century, but really picking up in the nineties. UM research into forgiveness like legitimate scientific research, and it's a multidisciplinary thing because there's a lot of different fields disciplines sure that have said, hey, this actually, this is something we can study and measure and produce articles in in and work on UM. And they have. They've produced some

really good legitimate work. But what most of them have been focused on is not the Don Henley position of somebody who needs to be redeemed, who needs redemption to feel better, who needs forgiveness, but rather the person doing the forgiving, the person who is originally trans transgressed against, not the offender, but the offendee. That's where most of

the research has been done on forgiveness. Right, Don Henley, it's a rock star, so he's he's writing a song about wanting to be forgiven for a foursome he had in St. Paul backstage. Sure, even if you don't love me anymore, can you forgive me that? You know? Can

you blame a guy? Is what he's saying. So yeah, I think that's probably exactly what that song is about, now that you mentioned so UM, I think we should start by um pointing out something about forgiveness, is that a lot of people, Um, there's a lot of stories about people not forgiving. We call it revenge, and people love revenge, you know, Like think about the revenge movie genre and how many entries there are pretty great, Like have you ever seen I Saw the Devil? Yeah? Have

you ever seen Old Boy? Yeah? Have you ever seen Death Becomes Her? Yeah? Have you ever seen She Devil? Nope? Oh you haven't. With Rosanne Barr and um Ed Bigley and and was that a revenge movie? Yes? All of them great revenge movies. Can I shout out one of my favorites? Yeah? Please do like legitimately, Uh, it's kind of a smaller indie movie called Blue Ruin. Oh yeah, I saw that one great great revenge movie. If you're into revenge movies, and I am, I enjoy it. There's

a catharcist involved. Because I'm a I'm a big forgiver,

so I think I like seeing movies where revenge happens. Yeah, And we'll talk a lot about, you know, revenge, because they're virtually two sides of the same coin, and they really interact in some surprising ways that are sensible when you see it laid out, but you might not necessarily be walking around thinking about But on the other side, if you look up movies about forgiveness, almost all of them were produced by a megachurch somewhere in the South.

Or you've got Magnolia and then the Fisher King are like the two like legitimate contenders for movies about forgiveness. Well, I don't know, because I think there's a fine line sometimes between redemption stories and forgiveness stories. They can kind of go hand in hand. There are plenty of redemption stories. Okay, Like what what redemption stories? Yeah, let's hear it. Oh, I mean Hoosiers one of the great sports redemption movies. Okay,

I think that's a pretty loose definition of redemption. Former alcoholic coach who who was not working because of some bad deeds gets redeemed by looking a team to a championship. Dennis Hopper gets redeemed as the alcoholic father. Wait a minute, was was um Gene Hackman on the road to redemption? I thought he came in and basically got Dennis Hopper

redeemed himself a double redemption. He was getting redeemed as well. Alright, Okay, Okay, Okay, so plenty of redemption stories, and I think there's a lot of movies that wrestle with the idea of forgiveness and really weighty, heavy ways. Uh like these true stories that you hear about these awful things that happened, whether a family member is accidentally killed by someone or murdered

by someone. Like, there's a lot of that stuff in movies. Okay, So my thesis was this, and this is strictly me editorializing here, but I think there's some validity too, and that is that the reason why it's much easier to name revenge movies is because revenge appeals to our baser instincts. It makes sense, it's it's universally understood. Um, And like you said, you even consider yourself a big time forgiver, and yet you enjoy revenge movies. It's cathartic for you.

There's something to be delivered by a revenge movie, a movie about forgiveness. It's just more complicated, it's harder. We're not as good and and and um, we're not as automatically adept at forgiveness as we may be with revenge. That's why I think there's fewer forgiveness movies. But that's not to say that we're not moved by it, because I think if you hear whenever you hear real life

stories of forgiveness, they just bowl you over. Even when you step back and think about like what the person is actually doing, you're like, yes, legitimately, anybody could do what they just did. It's it's akin to hearing somebody's solo climbing Mount Everest or something like that. It's just it makes the news literally when somebody forgives in a in a like a really deep way that the average

person might not, yeah, like a big time transgression. A lot of times you'll hear of a courtroom seen where someone has forgiven the person who like murdered their their relative or loved one or something, and that man, that stuff is powerful. You're right every time you see these stories. Uh, you dug up this one story from Berkeley, the Greater Good magazine, Uh, science based insights for a meaningful life. But if you see Berkeley of this woman who was

a nurses aid who hit a guy. She had been drinking, hit a guy in her car. He went through the windshield, uh and was stuck there and she was so impaired,

she didn't realize it for a while. Uh eventually realized that got out of the car, could not get the guy out, who was still alive, mind you, and so drove home and parked your car in the garage to let this guy slowly die in her garage over the course of a couple of days, and like she sobered up, would go out and check on him once in a while, but refused to call for help because she was too

concerned about getting in trouble. So instead she let him die, had a couple of friends come help her hide the body, moved the body, and then actually got found out later on because four months later she was at a party and she joked about it to an acquaintance who went and told the cops, and this woman ended up getting fifty years in prison. That's a horrible story. Like, that's one of the worst things that a human being could possibly do. There were so many opportunities for this woman

to save this man's life. And by the way, everyone involved in that court case who had a medical degree said that had she called the cops, the fire department taken the guy to the hospital, he almost certainly would have survived. Those injuries, but given that she didn't for days get him medical aid, he finally did succumb to them, but he probably would have survived, almost certainly would have survived. Like what she did was about as horrific as as

what what a person could do. It is so irresponsible with human life. And she rightfully got a fifty year prison sentence um for that crime. And yet despite how horrific that was, what made news just as much as that is that a short time later, that man's son, the man who was hit and killed, publicly forgave that woman for for killing his father. Yes, at the sentencing said quote, there's there's no winners in a case like this. Just as we all lost Greg, you all will be

losing your daughter to her family. I still want to extend my forgiveness to Shante Mallard was her name, and let her know that the Mallard family is in my prayers. And this is the kind of stuff, like you said, that makes the news where I think it hits everybody because it makes everybody stop for a second and say, could I do that? Yes? Could I reach that point of forgiveness? And that's a big, weighty question because there's

all kinds of forgiveness. There's uh, you know, a couple partners together who getting a fight and someone says they're sorry for doing a certain thing and they're forgiven or not. There are uh situations at work where people are forgiven. There are friends who maybe betray you by like cheating

on on somebody with someone. I had a situation like that where I had a former friend I felt like cheated with my barely ex girlfriend and I spent quite a few years being upset about that and then forgave him. And it's a powerful thing. So there's there's like levels, but when you get to this kind of thing where someone caused the death of a loved one and then even laughed about it, like to be able to forgive like that is just uh, that's next level. It is.

It is so much so chuck that a group of convicted murderers who were serving sentences in prison heard about this, and I guess got in touch with one another and raised funds and and got a ten tho dollars scholarship together for Brandon Biggs Um to go to college. Um, the convicted murderer sent the kid to college. Because this this very generous act of public forgiveness of his own father's murderer. UM. So yeah, it is. It's an astounding thing.

And yet everything that, like the research that really, like I said, started to take off in earnest in the nineties, UM, has shown us is that we're all perfectly capable of doing that. The answer is, yes, yes, you can do that, You totally could do that, but that we don't necessarily fully understand how to. Uh. And yet there's a lot of evidence also that it's evolutionarily wired into us to do that. Yeah. And you know, we'll get into religiosity of it a bit more in detail later, but all

religions talk a lot about forgiveness. Uh. There's you know, a pretty famous story in the Bible where Peter said to Jesus, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sends against me? Up to seven times? And Jesus said, I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven. And Peter said, so four times, and Jesus said, oh, Peter, always so literal. Yeah, that one's

pretty good. But you know, you can read Hindu, you can read the Buddhists talk about it, like everyone, every religion talks about forgiveness is kind of a maybe a cornerstone of of the religion in some cases, so much so that Um, when science started looking into forgiveness and

and and just trying to figure it out. Um, generally people is just presumed forgiveness was under the realm and the domain of religion, that that's where that's where you went for answers about forgiveness, and science said, oh ho ho, we can we can top that. Well, surely we can beat that four ninety number. And that's what they've said about doing Yeah, I mean Jesus forgave his crucifiers. It's like one of the few things Jesus said on the cross.

According to the Bible, they know not what they do, like forgive them for they know not what they do. Right. Uh. And like you said, it's not just Christianity, although Christianity gets all the all the accolades for forgiveness, Um, Jainism is a big one. There's a there's a kind of a mantra from Jainism that says, I grant forgiveness to all living beings. The all living beings grant me forgiveness. My friendship is with all living beings. My enmity is

totally non existent. And um, that's I mean when you look at that, especially if you're not a janist, um, you're you're like, wow, how would you ever? How would you ever reach that level? And I think that the point is like you never reach that level. It's an ideal, a goal that you try to achieve, probably on a daily basis if you're a janist, but it's certainly over a lifetime, you know. Yeah. And I'd like to read this, uh again not to pile on the religious stuff, but

the Hindu and really spoke to me. Uh. This one part in the middle says what can a wicked person do? And to him or into one who carries the saber of forgiveness in his hand? And that one really speaks to me, and that it's the it's a powerful tool to forgive, and it's for you as the forgiver. I think a lot of times people think it's can clear the conscious of someone who's done something wrong. I guess that certainly happens, But to me, it's it's really about

it's a it's a powerful weapon. You have to regain your own strength as a human. Yes, that seems to be the bulk of what psychology is is coming up with as far as studying forgiveness goes that it's really the person who is who has been wronged. That's what forgiveness is more about. That's the psychological aspect of it.

Like we said, there's um, it's a multidisciplinary investigation, and so you've got evolutionary biologists whore like, that's really great psychology, But we found a different reason for forgiveness and it doesn't quite fit that mold um and then um, like the medical field says, no, it's even better than that. You can actually like improve your health by genuinely forgiving somebody.

So there's all these different inputs that are coming together to create this really like complex, contextualized picture of what forgiveness is and what it does for us and why we have it. That's right. I think it's a great set up. I agree, you want to take a break, I might just not come back, and that feels so good about that. No, we have to finish. We got to complete, all right, We'll be back in a minute to talk about what I think it is. Probably the

most interesting part of this is the evolutionary aspect. Right after this, So this was this, Uh this is Libya correct? Uh forgiveness was the Dave Ruse joint. Okay, I thought this was Olivia. So yeah, thanks to Day for this.

He did a great job with this research. But the evolutionary aspect of forgiveness is super interesting to me because I think that a lot of people assume that it's what Dave calls a higher virtue, like you know is took took in the gang were so base as uh, you know kind of primitive thinkers, is that they didn't have the capacity forgive. They would they would smite somebody if if someone punched, took, took in the face, took, took punch back, or someone attack took, took, took, took

attack back, maybe even harder. And there is a quite a bit of evidence that um, they're not mutually exclusive, and that that that fighting back and forgiving both have

a big evolutionary advantage. Yeah. So the big evolutionary advantage of revenge is if you live in a social group and somebody takes advantage of you, or they hit you, or they steal your food or whatever, if you don't do something to right that wrong, you're broadcasting to the rest of the group that you're open for exploitation, and

that's not good for you. It's also not good for the chances that you're going to pass along your genes, and so under the under the auspices of natural selection, it makes sense for you to hit that person that steals your food or who hits you. And that's revenge, and revenge forms that function in a social group. It says to everybody, signals to the rest of the group, you're not to be messed with. This guy tried it, and look what happened to him. Nobody else should try that.

Go pick on somebody else. And there's actually been studies that have showed that not just among apes and primates, um, but among human cultures. Revenge is found pretty much universally. And I saw a study Chuck that said that, um, the mere presence of a person, a third party who's witnessing an argument increases the chances that the argument is going to come to blows because you're signaling to the rest of the group, and in this case, just that

third person you are not to be messed with. That that's the purpose of revenge is to is to broadcast that signal. Yeah, I mean, I would say that any kind of dumb, drunk bar fight. Half of it is the fact that someone didn't want to back down in front of other people. Sure, you know more than and that if those two guys were just in a alley somewhere, they may just hug it out. Yeah, probably not, but you never know that's possible, or they talk it out

at least or disagree that it's dumb and leave. Yes, but you talked about studies in the animal world. Uh, there's a primatologist named Franz Daval who looked at wild chimps recorded three and fifty encounters aggressive encounters between these chimps and then what happened afterward. And in of these encounters, Uh, the chimps would literally kind of kiss and make up and touch each other and embrace each other after a fight. We've seen the same thing in bona bows and great apes. Um,

there's sheep, there's dolphins, there's goats. Even hyenas have shown traits of forgiveness. So it's it's not ubiquitous, but it is all over the animal kingdom. Animals fighting and then animals making up with one another, Right, So I mean the revenge once pretty easy to understand. But then you're like, Okay, well why why would there be the making up part?

But that also ties into the fact that these same animals are also um living in social tight knit social groups, and so you have a limited amount of people that you can possibly have a dispute or a feud with, and if you're not working together cooperatively in that sense,

also your your chances of survival are decreased. So what makes sense is what's called the valuable relationship hYP hypothesis, which says, if somebody hits you, you should hit them back, but then after that you should make up with them. So you're sending that signal you're not to be messed with. But then you're repairing that relationship, that valuable relationship that you depend on to help your survival in the in the um social group UM, you're appairing it and then you,

guys can move forward. And that that is the how um. Revenge and forgiveness are basically two sides of the same coin, or at least work in conjunction with one another to keep the group um functioning at its best. Uh. And that kind of dovetails with a second part of that UM thing, which is called negative reciprocity, which is if someone hits took took and took took goes crazy and just starts whaling on the other person who just slapped him in the face. That's not good either, because everyone's

gonna go, whoa uh, took took. I'm not sure I trust him now. Um, he has definitely burned that bridge forever between him and the other guy. And none of this is very good. So what they found is negative reciprocity. If you if someone smites you, you smite them back the same amount and then forgive them. Like if someone takes off their glove and slaps you across the face, you don't you don't kick him between the legs and then wail on their face. You slap them back with

your glove. And then you talk about forgiving one another, and everyone sees that you can work with people. You can you can stand your ground, but you can also forgive and work with people, which means you're valuable to the group and you're valuable to have around. Yeah, and so kind of tie it into what you were saying earlier about you know how there's this idea that you know, revenge is a base instinct and forgiveness as a higher instinct,

rather than realizing that they're both pretty basic instincts. For for um, among the animal kingdom is there's this idea that in human society, UM, we have created like these social institutions in these contexts so that the individual doesn't have to to carry out revenge and then forgiveness, that they can just focus on forgiveness as long as those social institutions are doing what they're supposed to do, as long as there is like a pursuit of justice, and

you can rely on the idea that the person who transgressed against you by killing your father is going to be caught and punished and sentenced to jail. You don't have to worry about revenge. It's being it's being conducted for you, and then you, the individual in this well functioning society, can just focus on whether you want to forgive or not. And that that's that kind of higher

and lower echelon. Because in the in the opposite situation where there isn't like a good sense of justice, where it does seem like if you want justice you have to go seek it out yourself, revenge is going to be much more UM exercise much more frequently than forgiveness will Yeah, which says a lot about the United States these days, you know. Yeah, I mean I'm not trying to be cynical even, I mean, that's just sort of

what we see around us. I think a lot of people feel like the sense of justice in this country is pretty skewed, and that's why you might see the increases and things like vigilanism or revenge. And um, I don't know what society is you look to do a study like that. I'm kind of curious on the ones that are very well policed and the justice is um sort of fair and equal, but um, I think that's one of the problems in the in the States these

days for sure. Yeah, without getting too far down the rabbit hole, but also even you know, it's it's kind of eye opening to me because I've never really thought about the courts and the justice system is um set up to help individuals move along? Yeah, it should. You just think of it as punishment, as a system for punishment, not for redemption necessarily, but um, but it's also to help the victims. I just never saw it that way before. Yeah, it's interesting when you talk about that guy in court,

and a lot of times you'll hear the courtroom forgiveness. Um, sometimes you will also hear the opposite, and you hear the courtroom like, I will never forgive you for what you did to me, And I think not always, but it seems to be a lot of time tied to whether the transgressor has really acknowledged what they've done and sought forgiveness and said, that's the worst thing I've ever done in my life, and I don't I don't think

you should ever forgive me. Like It's an interesting sort of dance that happens there because it's not a one to one thing. It's not like every time a bad criminal that does something really asked for forgiveness and says

it was a terrible thing, the other person forgives. So sometimes the person could laugh it off like this lady did and not ask for forgiveness, in any other person could forgive, which I think goes back to the notion that forgiveness comes from the forgiver, right, that that's that that it's really about the person who's been wrong, that's

who it's about. And so yeah, now we've reached the kind of psychology's domain over the concept of forgiveness, which is that it's about you, the individual who suffered a wrong um releasing the pain and the anger and the resentment and all the negative feelings that you're experiencing so that you can feel better, and that it doesn't matter whether the other person is asking for forgiveness, and that it doesn't even matter if the other person deserves forgiveness

or not. That genuine forgiveness psychologically speaking, according to some psychologists will hear that some to agree, but that genuine, true forgiveness is unconditional, that you you forgive the person whether they deserve it or not. Yeah, And this is where the language to me is a little I could see people debating this because it is forgiveness in a way,

but to me, it's almost more of just a letting go. Yeah, I agree with you, of an anger, So it's not it's so it's so tricky with the definition because when you think of forgiveness, you think I'm saying and it's really not what it is. What you're not saying is it's okay, what you did, okay, So yeah, you know what I mean. That's not what That's not a key component of forgiveness. No, No, it's not your that's and that's a very confusing thing for a lot of people too.

Is that the idea that if you forgive somebody, you're you're you're condoning their behavior. You're saying it's okay what they do. That's not the point of forgiveness, um from from what psychologists who researched this are coming up with. Their saying, you know, what you're doing when you forgive somebody is to say, I know what you did, you wronged me. I can live with that. It doesn't make it any better. Yeah, it doesn't make it any better.

It doesn't excuse what you did, and it does it certainly doesn't excuse future repeated um instances of what you just did. But it's saying like, I'm willing to let go of the pain I have associated with this act you you you did against me, that you this wrong, and I'm going to move forward with my life and in doing that, I'm willing to let you move forward as well. Well. Or I think sometimes in a case like this, that kind of forgiveness can make the transgressor

suffer worse sometimes, Yeah, just out of guilt. Yeah, and they want to be admonished and hated as part of a punishment. But you know it's t s, you know, because again, forgiveness is not for you, it's for the person. Dave even makes a great point the person being forgiven uh is secondary or even unnecessary to the process. And that's sort of the key. You don't even have to tell that person necessarily. We'll we'll get to later some

kind of like how to forgive. Some people say that you should tell someone out loud, like literally tell someone, But you don't necessarily have to tell that person if it's a situation like this, or even if it's like a close personal friend like I think usually you do when it's someone you know, because that's a part of communicating with one another in a healthy way. But if it's the person who who killed your family, uh, you don't have to tell them to forgive them, and you

can still forgive them. Yes, So some psychologists define forgiveness, like a full forgiveness as including you actually seeking out contact with that person, and that if you forgive them but don't tell them, or you still avoid them afterward, where it's like, hey, I forgive you, but good luck with the rest of your life, you're not in my life anymore. That to to some psychologists, not all. Some

psychologists say that's that's not genuine forgiveness. That's akin to like what you were saying, which is letting go of anger and moving on, but not really actually forgiving. I still say it's forgiving. I'm not one of the psychologists. Sure, and it's it's very much debated, for sure. But then that also leads to another point too that if you forgive somebody, it doesn't necessarily mean you forget, and and that's not part and parcel to it. Forgiving doesn't mean forgetting.

You can forget. Um, I'm actually really good at that kind of thing. Where like I I forgive because it just unless it was a really huge wrong, it just kind of phase from my memory fairly easily. And I don't I'm not, I don't dwell on it. Um. So

so it can they can go hand in hand. But if you've been deeply wrong by somebody where you're actually going through the process of forgiving, which we'll talk about, and it is a it's a deliberate step that you're taking towards finding peace with your self in your life again, then um, you know very well what that wrong was, and you're not going to forget it, but eventually the aim is that you will have divorced the emotional attachment from that memory too, of that wrong, to where it

becomes akin to like a movie you saw once or trip you took once, Like it's not it's just a thing that happened in your life, rather than this, this this crisis that is sucking up your attention and emotions. Yeah, I really like this definition from Fred Luskin, who is a psychologist and forgiveness expert for what It's worth, director of the Stanford University Forgiveness Projects. And Fred's definition is to forgive is to give up all hope for a

better past. And that's that really lays it out there in this in a very practical sense, that what what has happened has happened. You may not be there yet in your journey to forgiveness or or the letting go, but you cannot change what happened, no matter how angry you are, or how much you want someone to pay for it or suffer, or how much revenge you want. So there is no better past. That's impossible. So giving up hope for a better past it's sort of oblique definition,

but one that I think is pretty instructive. Yeah, but it's also a realistic definition too if you think about it. Because you can't change the past one way or another. You can only alter how you let the past continue

to affect you or not. And the the other thing I really want to say here right now, because it can be confusing for me to um when I when I think about forgiveness and anger and stuff like that is like, this is not No one is talking about a something like throwing a switch or like, rather than feeling anger, you feel forgiveness. That's actually counterproductive, as we'll see. Like you you like, you can't replace anger with forgiveness. Forgiveness is meant to um after anger because you use

anger or hurt or resentment or whatever. Your version of that is um to to um to protecting guard your own boundaries. So it's unnatural for you to not have some sort of negative emotion or negative response to being wronged. But um you don't want to replace that or try to replace it with forgiveness because you may accidentally trip up the process and you you're not really legitimately feeling forgiveness. You're basically just setting yourself up to be wronged again. Yeah.

My deal personally is, uh, Emily has always talks about what a forgiving person I am because I really crave, uh to forgive. I don't know, I was about to say crave forgiveness. I crave forgiving. I guess it sounds funny, but I just, uh, all all I need is for someone to say they're sorry for something and then it's done. Uh nine times out of ten that's done for me. And as far as forgetting, like, I'm a pretty good forget or too. I don't know about like literally forgetting something.

But I definitely look back on a lot of relationships, especially with like ex girlfriends that were terrible, and go, what was so bad in there? In that relationship? We were pretty good? Right? Sure, No, we weren't pretty good

at all. I just have rose colored glasses. And I think you and I are both like as as podcasting partners and family and team good about when we had little dust ups forgiving one another, if the other person like says they're sorry, like you and I both get over that stuff pretty quickly, yeah, which is it's very key though, you know, like, oh yeah, you can't forgiveness is like from the heart if you really, if you're hanging onto something, then you're not done with it yet. No,

but so and that's so important, Chuck. That's important for the individual to remember that if you if you are unable to forgive, that me that you're you're still hanging onto it. That doesn't mean you'll never forgive. And that also doesn't mean you have to hurry up and forgive. It means you're still in the process of reaching the point where you can forgive. It's a deliberate choice. From everything I've seen in the research, you're making a deliberate

choice to forgive somebody. But it's not throwing a switch. It's part of a process. And during that process, while you're on the road to forgiving the person, you're still gonna be kind of angry at them. Maybe not the whole time, but every once in a while it might hit you before you've fully forgiven them, and then you're gonna be mad about it all over again. That's okay, that's normal, that's natural. You can't really rush it. You can, but it's gonna be detrimental. What you want to do

is just kind of let it play out. And have faith that if you're on the path of forgiveness, you'll ultimately will forgive the person and things will be good again. Yeah, and depending on your your life and your childhood, like you probably have an inclination or an instinct to forgive or not based on what you saw, what was modeled there.

There's both nature and nurture involved, But I think people generally have an instinct of revenge or forgiveness, and to do one of the other that is against that instinct requires great effort, especially in the case of forgiveness, because you may not be inclined to be a forgive at all. That doesn't mean something's wrong with you. That just means that's probably what you saw growing up, or maybe something happened to you when you were young that makes it

harder for you. But it's still possible to get there. It just might be tougher. Well. What's neat is another thing that the field of psychology is telling us about forgiveness is that it can be taught. You can learn to forgive. Even if you were raised in an unforgiving um uh environment where you never learned how to do that, you can learn how to do it um and Uh, I say, we kind of jumped to those um too, how to forgive um before we go into physical health,

because I feel like we're kind of there right now. Yeah, well, let's take a break. Okay, let's take our final break, and uh we'll talk about that when you get back, as well as this one sort of interesting study I'd like to hit real quick too. Okay, learn stuff with Joshua. All right, So there's this study that Dave dug up that I thought was interesting. I think it's flawed. But in social psychology, they took forty six people. They invited

them into two groups. One wrote about a time when they had something, uh, some wrong committed against them, but they forgave. The other wrote about a time when they had something wrong committed against them, but they did not forgive. And then they told those people to stay in at the bottom of a hill to estimate how steep it was, and also in a separate part of the city to jump as high as they could. The unforgiving group guests that the incline was five degrees steeper on average than

the forgiving, and the forgivers jumped seven centimeters higher. So the takeaway here is is you literally it's more difficult for you. You see the world as being more difficult and steeper, and you can't jump as high and you can't accomplish as much if you're holding onto that. All kinds of red flags here to study, especially when it comes to the jumping part. But uh, I thought it was interesting the guessing the incline of the hill. There

may be something to that. Well, yeah, and I mean it is backed up chucked by the physical the physiological UM studies of how UM, how stress and anger affect you, and how releasing those can actually help you. UM. There's a lot of research that shows that you can suffer from chronic stress when you're angry all the time, and that that's tied to everything from high blood pressure to

UM diabetes to poor cardiovascular outcomes. UM, just a whole host of chronic conditions can be traced back to chronic stress, and chronic stress can be traced back to chronic anger. And what they've what they're discovering is that forgiveness can

actually undo that can actually reverse that. There was a study that UM that that rated people based on the life stresses they had had, and they apparently recruited UM participants for the study who had been through a lot of stress, so much so that they were basically always chronically stressed because they have had so many terrible events in their life. And there was one group that actually, um did not have poor health compared to the rest

of the group. And they found that when they gave them a test of forgiveness of how how forgiving they were generally, they've on that this subset was actually overall a very forgiving group and that that somehow was battling back the chronic stress or the effects of chronic stress on their health in life. Yeah, I mean, I think

that makes complete sense. If you are someone who really has a problem with forgiving and just holds on to these deep, deep resentments against people, usually against people very close to you in your family, even um that that just that can't be good for you physically. I've seen

it happen. I don't want to get too personal, but there are people in my family who haven't spoken for twenty plus years over dumb stuff that it's like, you see that kind of like stubbornness coupled with resentment, and it's just hand that's just no way to live, Yeah,

no way to live. Yeah, so there was another one that another study that Dave turned up that UM shows that even like in a very short term UH, thinking about holding a grudge can actually affect you physiologically by activating your sympathetic nervous system, as they put the battle or scitattle impulse. And they found that this UM these they cut these two groups into um or. They cut

the participants in the two groups. All of the people had to think about some time when they were deeply wronged in the past, and then one group was taken through an exercise where they learned to forgive the person. The other group this is so mean, was encouraged to hold the grudge. They were basically taught they went through an exercise to hold a grudge and be angry in

resentment or resentful about that. And they found that the people who were taught to hold the grudge had elevated skin conductance, which meant their nervous system was aroused, higher arterial blood pressure not good UM. They also had muscle tension in the brow area you know when your brows furrowed when you're stressed out or match, and that they they the symptoms even after they went through an exercise

to basically de escalate everything. The symptoms persisted, and this was just an exercise where you were just thinking about being wronged and then holding a grudge about just just like probably this is like an hour out of their lives. And that's that was the effects. That was the findings

of that. So it's pretty clear that that yes, anger can can affect you, um physically, and what they haven't we don't have the reams of data that we have supporting it like we do that anger hurts you physically, But there's there seems to be the opposite of that holds true, which is releasing that anger, which is forgiveness and whatever form it takes can actually improve your health as well. Right earlier in the episode, we were talking

about religion. All religions talk extensively about forgiveness and when they do studies these days, usually like questionnaires and stuff. Um. Depending on the studies you look at, you would think religiosity does play a role and that people who describe themselves as religious, um supposedly in some studies are two and a half times more likely to say that others

should be forgiven unconditionally. But I know you found some studies that found that religiosity does not play as big a role as a lot of people think it does, and that, uh, sometimes religious people may be more inclined to say that they are forgiving when they aren't because it's the right thing to do. Yeah. The study found that when when you ask basically when you survey them, people who are religious tend to come off as more forgiving.

They self report is forgiving, But then if you ask them other certain questions, UM, I guess in the in real world situations, they're no more forgiving than other people. But so that would be an interpretation that they they think they're more forgiving or tell people they're more forgiving than they actually are. But there's a um another way to look at it too. And they went back and followed up on that study and they found that over a longer term, people who are religious actually do tend

to be more forgiving in their lives. It wasn't like the most set in stone study, but I found it interesting that they were They had harder The religious people in this study, um had more difficulty in um relating grudges that they're carrying around compared to the control group of people who weren't religious. Yeah, makes sense. There was

some redemption there. Yeah. Uh. As far as how to forgive, like we said, hopefully we've gotten it through that, it's something you can learn if you are not an inherent forgiver, you can learn how to through practice. Uh. There's a psychologist named Worthington, Worthington, Edward Everett Everett Worthington. There should be a third after that if you totally should be uh. And Worthington has developed the reach model, which will go

through it's um. It's an acronym. Of course. Recall is the first step, and that's to really recall the event in detail, but in that's sort of an objective way and not necessarily something that was done to you, but just to look at the detail of it and try not to judge yourself or the other person, just simply bring that back to your mind. Yeah. And the point of that is to feel the feelings like we have. We humans have such a tendency to try to get

away from negative feelings and run towards positive feelings. And UM, I think Worthington's position is that we have to feel whatever feelings are associated with it, and that's a huge part of it. That's we have to go through that experience as part of the recall. Right, the E stands

for empathy. UM. This is one that is I don't know about controversial, but it's it's not everyone agrees at all and whether or not you need to actually have empathy to forgive, um, but empathy can certainly help you forgive. If someone has broken into your home and stolen from you, Uh, it might help to forgive them to empathize and think about where they may be in their life to feel like they needed to do something like that, Uh, is

one example. Yeah. And he points out also like you're not excusing their behavior, but you're just thinking about something beyond just a villain or criminal or person who wronged you. For sure. And actually we should say Everett Worthington had to put his money where his mouth was because his mother UM was actually murdered by a burglar. I think back, and he put himself through this UM the reached method, and he said he came out on the other side better off than he had been. And I think he

was already doing this. Right. That didn't inspire his career, did it? No? No, I think he was already doing it. Concidentally the ironies. So the A stands for altruistic gift. And the point of this is that you realize that you are actually um giving a gift by forgiving somebody, even I guess if you don't tell them, even if

you don't necessarily empathize with them. But the way you do this, the way you UM you you recognize that your forgiveness is an altruistic gift is to think about times where you've wronged somebody and that they've been forgiven or forgiving, and and even if you didn't necessarily deserve it, and what a gift that that was, you're kind of bringing it to mind, which I think is really suspiciously kind of tied in with empathizing if you ask me, yeah,

I mean he was trying to make the word reach sure, uh commit to This is what I mentioned earlier about telling someone else doesn't necessarily have to be the person you're forgiving, although that could help, uh if you want

to go that route. But telling someone else, at least in Worthington's mind, makes it, gives it a degree of permanence and basically makes it part of your story, like you're changing the story essentially exactly and then hold and this is very important too that we said earlier you you can forgive, and it doesn't necessarily mean you're going

to forget. So when you do remember that kind of thing, you're still going through the process and you're still angered by you're still hurt by it, but you're on the path of forgiveness. You have to hold on to the to the idea that you're you're working on forgiving them. That it's not an instantaneous thing. So you have to hold the fact that you're forgiving them even in the face of, you know, being triggered by or flooded by this again when you think about the memory of it. Right.

Luskin has a nine step process, which we weren't we're not gonna really get into, but step eight is interesting. Uh, just like R. E. M. Says living well is the best revenge, is the sort of the nuts and bolts of number eight, and uh, there's something to be said for that, but I think it also makes it much harder to forgive and move on if you're not able to live well. And that doesn't mean you know, money and riches and stuff that that means just living a

full life. But if you're not able to forgive and get past that. I mean, there are plenty of movies of people that have been have some awful thing from their past that they're just wallowing in all these years later, and that's the central plot of the film. You know, she devil Hoosiers. That's right, but that's I mean, that's the that's the point of forgiveness is too, is to

free yourself, to find peace within yourself. And yes, it's great for the person who wronged you if you overtly forgive them and let them know, but you don't have to.

And then also, Chuck, there's a whole school thought in psychology that says, not only do you not have to tell the person that you're forgiving them, you don't have to forgive them at all, and that there's this this whole almost kind of um, not culti, but really kind of dogmatic idea that if you don't follow these steps and you don't, like, genuinely fully forgive somebody, you really haven't worked out of the process. There's something wrong with you.

Maybe you're an unforgiving person and that makes you tacky. That's what psychologists call it um. And there's a whole group of psychologists say no, no, no, there's a there's way more to this process than just you know, nine steps or the reach method like there, there's it's more nuanced than that, and that you can be a fully functioning, emotionally developed person who says, you know what, I don't forgive you. I may never forgive you, but I'm still

going on with my life. And if the point of forgiveness is to achieve peace in yourself, If you can achieve peace in yourself and you do it without forgiving somebody because you don't want to forgive them or you don't feel like you should forgive them, then that's okay too. As long as you're you're getting inner peace, that's the point. Yeah, And there there's a school of thought saying that in cases where like it's harm has been committed to you,

that could happen again. Uh, you may be more likely to have that harm committed to you again if you do forgive too much. Yeah, there is research about spousal abuse that when you are too or when you're quick to forgive the abuser, then you are victimized more regularly than spouses who aren't. Is forgiving and uh, that's that's based on operant learning. Basically, you're less likely to engage

in a behavior that has a negative consequence. So they've done plenty of research on that, and a lot of psychologists uh say, like, yeah, forgiveness is great, but while you shouldn't be bitter, there are a lot of times when you should not forgive somebody, and that's okay, Yeah, there's a whole um. There's an article from on Psychology Today called Must We Forgive? And it is really interesting,

it's fascinating. It's this psychologist writes about probably half a dozen or more people and they're different individual circumstances and the reasons they chose not to forgive, and um, she kind of pigeonholes them into like three general categories, but because psychologists love doing that. But it's a really compelling article and it's definitely worth reading, and it provides this kind of alternative idea that like, no, there's definitely situations

where some people don't deserve your forgiveness. One of the chief among them is if you say, like a sibling or a family member of some sort um you have like some sort of falling out with or they've wronged you and you choose not to forgive them. You might feel tremendous pressure from the rest of your family to just go ahead and forgive them. That's a terrible reason

to forgive somebody. And if you do forgive them under those circumstances, or say because your religion decrees it, um, you're like, that's not full forgiveness, and it may actually harm you because you may suffer um from from a distorted self image or or lowered self respect because you basically went back to this person who not only wrong do in the past, is unrepentant about it, but as he was going to continue the behavior again in the future.

So there's definitely instances that where like you probably shouldn't forgive, But that doesn't mean that you should be stuck in resentment and anger and letting that person have power over your life. You might just need to move on without them and without forgiving them, and you can make that work as well. Yeah, I mean, there was that one terrible story that you said about the woman who as a child had this terribly bullying and abusive older brother.

And we won't even talk about the awful things this guy did, but the parents were really put always pushing like, Oh, he just doesn't. He doesn't know how to say he loves you, he doesn't know how to talk to you. So he does these things and you really need to forgive him. And that's just that's bonkers. You know that that is a situation where you're doing such great harm as a parent to teach your daughter to accept this kind of behavior and not only accept it but forgive it.

It's like just setting her up for unless she really therapies through that stuff later in life of just a series of terrible relationships. So exactly, yes, yes he can't. Uh, Forgiveness isn't always the thing. Um My. I have a friend who had a terrible thing happened to him when he was younger, and he we talked a lot about this and he has forgiven that person in his heart

and I was like, well I haven't. And I was like I'm still angry about it, and he was like thanks, Like that helps, Like I'm angry and have not forgiven on his behalf. And I thought he was going to say like, no, man, you need to do the same. And he was like he was like, thank you, man, I appreciate that. Yeah, And I think that's another another thing worth pointing out too, is we have this concept of people who forgive others being saintly and and it's

not necessarily that kind of a thing. It's not necessarily that kind of a process. Sometimes it is just it up self preservation. Like you are, that's the way that you're going to get to put a point where you can feel peace again in your life. And that doesn't mean you're a saying or you're even feeling saintly. You're you're conducting yourself in a saintly manner, and that doesn't matter as long as you're feeling inner peace in your life is no longer in turmoil, and this person who

wronged you doesn't have power over you any longer. That's the point of forgiveness. Yeah, and that that was totally the deal in his cases. That was his only way forward to to healing himself. But since this wasn't something that happened to me, I was able to not forgive right and and remain upset about it. And uh he he was okay with that. Yeah. And still to this day, you won't buy that guy beers man. So um, there's one other thing that has started to kind of come

out of the shadows. That's just getting picked up by psychology as far as forgiveness goes, and it's self forgiveness and we don't really have room to talk about that here, but it's worth exploring sometime, maybe into short stuff. Yeah, that's a big deal. Just uh a of times when I'm beating up on myself, Emily says, you need to be nicer to my friend. Oh, I know you've you've told that before. I was just think, one of the sweetest things I've ever heard. What a kind thing to say.

It works, you know, who needs to hear that? Don Henley, you got anything else on forgiveness and nothing else? It's this is a good way to eat philosophical discussion. I like these, agreed. Thanks a lot to Dave Ruce for helping us out with this one. Uh. And if you want to know more about forgiveness, you should seriously go out and do some reading, especially if you have something to forgive. It's not something you necessarily can understand, just instinctively.

It helps to see what the experts say. So maybe go explore that and free yourself. Says I said, free yourself. That of course means it's time for a listener. Now I'm gonna call this dental art. Hey, guys, been a listener for a while. We've nearly finished with the sandwiching method. Before I knew it was even cool. Uh, we were talking a few shows. You were talking a few shows back before the Holidays about um putting a kidney stone

in Chuck's replacement tooth. This would be unusual, but people actually get custom inlays and artwork made for their crowns in laser, generally gold or gemstone with a custom artwork, and it's referred to as a tooth tattoo, which is hand painted onto the crown before it gets a final quote of glaze. The most common request here in the Chicago Land area are sports logos, like a little Chicago Cubs logo, but I've seen names, company logos, even a

tiny version of Starry Night on a tooth. While a lot of modern Crown and Bridge manufacturing has gone digital, highly leveraging cam a CAD in three D printing for most restorations, tooth tattoos are unique manifestation of the relatively unknown artistry of a subset of dental technicians. While I recognize the dentistry as a whole is widely disliked and a pain to endure. I appreciate you guys probably unknowingly helped to destigmatized restorative dental work by openly talking about

your dealings with it. Toothwaar and decay is part of the human condition. No need for shame. After all, we'll keep me and my CADRA employed and happily listening to stuff you should know. Many regards. That is from Eric Crowley or Crowley, probably Crowley. I'm going with Crowley in park Ridge, Illinois. Very nice. Thanks a lot, Eric, that's awesome. Can you imagine seeing starry night on a tooth? I

gotta look that up. Be wonderful. I'd have this scream, well, that's a good one, and then you could scream whenever you reveal it to Yeah, just freak people up. Um And speaking of sports teams, Chuck, I feel like we should congratulate our Georgia Bulldogs for winning the national championship. Yes, I never thought I would see the day. Uh what a great, great game. Uh just unbelievable feeling too. Championships in three months for this long suffering Atlanta slash Georgia

ban I know it's amazing. I don't even know how to reconcile these feelings that I'm having lately, and they'll be robbed from you next year. Don't worry. We're back to normal. But that is pretty great to go out on a highlight. Probably that was great. Go dogs, Go dogs, indeed. And if you want to get in touch with Chuck and I and Jerry or Frank the Chair or Harry Dog even we can probably pass along emails you send.

You can wrap your emails up, spend them on the bottom, and send them off to Stuff podcast at i heart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.